Here's to the Past
by singyoutosleep
Summary: The Hudsons were sitting at home, watching television, when a simple doorbell ringing would take them on a trip down memory lane that neither of them was ready for. Futurefic, Fuinn. Flashbacks begin after Sectionals. Possible change to M later.
1. The Doorbell

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Glee or any of the canon characters. The Hudson children and their backstories are all mine, however.

**Author's Note: **Okay, let's do this thing. Name credit goes to ADTR. Please read and review. This is my first Fuinn fic ever!

* * *

At the age of 34, it still struck Finn Hudson as strange that he had never moved out of his mother's house. Well, aside from a few weeks when he'd been forced to move in with the Hummels but that situation had quickly remedied itself by way of him being an extraordinary douche bag. He'd been a stupid kid back then, in every way imaginable. Now, he was still pretty stupid, but he had definitely done okay for himself. He was a music teacher and he was the director of McKinley High's New Directions, the very same club that had inspired his love of music to begin with, and he had a hot and sexy wife who was leaning against him, her hand inching dangerously close to the bottom of his t-shirt, while they watched football on the couch. Twirling a bit of perfect blonde hair around his finger, Finn sighed happily as Quinn let out a quiet chuckle. "After almost 20 years, aren't you tired of doing that?" she questioned, looking up at him with her lips curled into a slight smile.

"Nope," Finn replied with a shrug, smiling back at her as she snuggled up more against him. "Do you think he'll finally sleep through the night?"

"Freddy? I doubt it. He's still going through that 'monsters are scary' phase. I want to punch his teacher in the face. As much as I love him, I miss my early morning sex with my husband. Why did we have kids again?" she questioned, though she wasn't serious. Quinn was the ultimate housewife and she loved it. She had gone to accounting school but when they'd gotten pregnant the first time, they'd decided that Quinn would stay home and she had become one of those momagers whose lives were happily run by their kids.

"I miss early morning sex, too. Maybe we should start locking the door," Finn chuckled, running his thumb back and forth over Quinn's shoulder. As much as he loved being a dad to three little terrors, he was really starting to miss his wife.

"Ew, my door's not closed," came a voice from down the hall.

"You shouldn't be eavesdropping, Caroline," Quinn shot back, waiting for the groan from their eldest. "You're seventeen years old, you should know better than that."

"Whatever," came the indignant reply.

"Sometimes, it really feels like she's your biological daughter," Finn mumbled, rolling his eyes. Caroline was seventeen, and unlike the rest of their children, she was adopted. Caroline was his Finn Hudson. Will Schuester had taken an interest in him and he had taken Caroline under her wing. She was bounced around through the foster system her whole life, and she'd been transferred to a home within the McKinley zoning district and had joined New Directions. Finn wasn't blind. Caroline had always been a little quieter than the rest of the kids and the excessive makeup she was sporting _wasn't_ her attempt at hiding a hickey, because she wasn't that kid. Within a few weeks, Caroline was coming to Finn about the fact that her foster parents were abusive and as soon as Finn had found out, he called Quinn and convinced her that they needed to be assigned as her temporary guardians. That temporary guardianship had eventually become permanent, and she was officially a part of the family and on her way to being fully adopted by them. But her personality was 100% Quinn Hudson in seventeen year old form. Right down to the fact that she was captaining the Cheerios.

Pulling Quinn a little closer to him, Finn sighed happily, turning his attention back to the television. "Ugh, is it too much to ask for them to make one decent pass?" he mumbled, shaking his head.

"I used to ask myself the same question _every single game_ you ever played," Quinn retorted, eliciting a pout from Finn.

"Meanie."

"I'm Quinn Hudson, that goes without saying, babe," she reminded him, cracking a smile as she leaned up to kiss his cheek.

"You're lucky you're hot," Finn teased, sticking his tongue out as he picked up his beer bottle, savouring the last sip. It was always the best part. As if on cue, as soon as he stuck the bottle back down on the table, there was a ring of the doorbell.

"I'll get it!" Caroline called, already running down the hall in the direction of the door.

"You expecting someone?" Finn asked.

"No, I'm just running to the door because I'm so interested in being hounded by the Jehovah's Witness again," she muttered.

"Hey! We're tolerant of all religions in this house," Quinn reminded her.

"Sure, that's why you don't answer the door when you see it's them, mom," Caroline sighed, rolling her eyes. She had recently gotten to the stage where calling them mom and dad seemed to be alright. It was a slow process, day by day.

"If it's a boy you know the rule, door open," Finn warned, throwing his daughter a look.

"Yeah, yeah, I – oh," Caroline replied, as she opened the door, seeing not the boy she had invited over, but a girl, about her age. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, actually. Is – is this Quinn Fabray's house?" the girl asked, looking slightly nervous as she chewed on her lip.

"Yeah, why?"

Leaning her head toward the door as Quinn heard her name enter the conversation, she frowned. Who was this girl? Taking a sip of her beer, Caroline would probably just brush her off and the girl would be on her merry way.

"Can you tell her that Beth is here to see her? Beth Corcoran."

If his face wasn't drained of color and if he didn't feel like fainting, Finn Hudson would have been impressed by his wife. Her spitting skills could totally rival a camel's and then some. But he was too busy trying to be the Flash, bolting to the door and completely forgetting the disappointing football game.

"Caroline, go to your room," he said, shooing his daughter in the direction of her room.

"But-"

"_Now_," Finn warned, in a tone that told her not to argue with him this one time.

"Fine. You suck," she pouted, making her way back to her bedroom.

"Are you..." Beth asked, ringing her hands together and looking totally uncomfortable. Finn wasn't looking that much better.

"No," he replied, knowing what she was getting at. "I'm Finn Hudson, Quinn's husband," Finn added, looking at Quinn who was seated on the sofa, looking at the window but not really seeing anything. She was shaking like a leaf.

"Why don't you come in?" Finn offered, opening the door a little wider to let her through.

"Thank you," Beth replied, giving him a small nod as he shut the door behind her. "Is that...Quinn?" she asked, as her attention turned to Quinn on the couch.

"Yeah. Would you give me a minute? She's just... she wasn't expecting you. None of us were," Finn admitted, scratching the back of his neck.

"I know. This was probably a bad idea – I shouldn't have come, not without calling," Beth mumbled, looking down at the floor.

Finn was vaguely reminded of Rachel and how her own reunion with her birth mother hadn't been so hot. "No – wait here. She just needs a second," Finn assured her, going to check on Quinn as Beth stood nervously in the entryway.

"Quinn?" Finn whispered, putting a hand on his wife's back as he sat down next to her. "Quinn, you need to say something to her."

"I know," Quinn replied, her voice barely audible. "I just, what would you like me to say? Hi, I'm Quinn, I gave you up because I couldn't raise you myself?"

"No. You're going to say everything you've always said that you wanted to say to her every time that we've talked about this," Finn nodded, his voice firm even though he was honestly scared shitless.

"I said all those things because I thought it would never happen..." she whispered, looking down.

"But you meant them all. Every single thing," Finn reminded her, rubbing her back as he waved Beth over, watching as the girl took what seemed like forever to stand in front of them.

"Quinn? My name is Beth," she said, biting her lip with a worried look before she continued. "I'm your daughter."


	2. Lead us Not into Temptation

**Author's note:** Wow. I got so many reviews for the first chapter! Thank you! Please keep doing it. The actual Fuinn parts of this story will be primarily told as flashbacks, so when you see *****s, you're in a flashback. R&R and I only own the Hudson children, same as before.

* * *

The words rang in Quinn's head over and over and over. A part of her wondered if she hadn't slipped into some kind of dream state or something, because seeing her daughter after so many years, and finding that she had grown up to be such a beautiful girl seemed too good to be true.

"I'm Quinn. I'm your mom."

The words were harder to say than what she'd thought. She needed to cry, but she didn't want to cry, not in front of Beth. She felt Finn squeeze her hand and she flashed him a small smile, before turning her attention back to Beth. "Please, sit down," she nodded, gesturing to a chair and watching as Beth sat in exactly the same way as she did.

"I know this is very sudden, but I've been wanting to find you for a long time. My mother, Shelby, wouldn't help me find you again. It took me forever to even find that you once lived in Lima. I found some old glee stuff on the internet... I had no idea if you were still in town or not, but I thought I'd at least try," Beth explained, sighing as she looked down at her lap.

"It's fine. I'm happy to see you. _We're_ happy to see you," Quinn insisted, glancing at Finn who nodded in support of her statement.

"But I thought you said that you weren't my dad?" Beth asked, confused.

"Well, no, I'm not – but for a while I actually thought you were my little girl," Finn frowned, clearly still in pain, no matter how long ago it had happened.

"I really wanted Finn to be your dad, so badly, but he wasn't the father. It's kind of a long story," Quinn admitted, sighing.

"I hope I'm not asking too much of you but...would you mind telling me? You know, the story... I came out here because I wanted to find you. Learn a little bit about you, why you gave me up. I've always wondered, but my mom doesn't like to talk about it..." Beth sighed, fiddling nervously with the ends of her hair.

It took Quinn a minute, but she gave a slight nod. "Yes...I've always wanted you to know that I didn't give you up because I didn't love you. I loved you _so much_, and I still do, that I knew I had to give you up to give you the kind of life you deserve. So, of course I'll tell you what happened," she smiled.

Beth looked highly relieved, and Finn flashed them both a grin. "I'm going to go check on Caroline, because I'm sure she's not happy, so I'll be back in a minute," he interjected, kissing the side of Quinn's head as she gave him a nod. Watching as he made his way to their daughter's bedroom, Quinn sighed and turned her attention back to Beth.

"So if Finn's not..., then who is?" Beth asked, her hands wringing uncomfortably in her lap. The silence in the house was almost deafening. There were brief chuckles or sighs coming from Caroline's room, but other than that, it was now quiet. Oh so quiet.

"Noah Puckerman," Quinn finally replied, looking down at the floor. It never got any less embarrassing, no matter how many times she said it.

"Wait... not-" Beth began, before being cut off by Quinn.

"Pucky Puck, yes. Your father is Pucky Puck..." she sighed, running a hand through her long, blonde locks. "Way back before he was Pucky Puck, he was Noah Puckerman – or just Puck, actually, and that's when you were conceived."

"Well, I'm not surprised – I mean, I bet he was a bad ass just like now. Who _wouldn't_ be attracted to that?" Beth supposed. She had heard of Pucky Puck. Everyone had heard of Pucky Puck. It had been that way for years.

"I wasn't, actually," Quinn insisted, biting down on her lip. "He was attractive, sure, but I wasn't _attracted_ to him... my hear's only really ever belonged to one person, and that's Finn..."

"So how -"

"I know this sounds terrible, but it was a mistake. Sleeping with Puck with a mistake. I'm not saying that _you_ were a mistake, but I shouldn't have slept with Puck that night. It almost cost me everything. It almost cost me Finn," Quinn mumbled, the pain in her voice evident.

"Well, how did you get it all back?" Beth wondered, sounding genuinely curious.

"I think, before I can tell you how I got it all back, you have to understand how I lost it all first," she sighed, closing her eyes. It was going to be a long night...

* * *

It was only when she heard the words, "I'm done with you" that Quinn Fabray realized just how much she had screwed up and just what she had lost. It was also the first time where she knew that _I love you_ couldn't fix things.

But Quinn did love Finn.

She had just never realized how much she loved him until the second she lost him. And Quinn knew that there was no turning back from this. No reconciliation. It wasn't like the time that Finn had forgotten about their four month anniversary. He had nearly burnt her house down trying to cook her dinner and she had come home to the fire alarm going off, but it was one of those things where the gesture counted more than the actual result. They'd gone out for Breadsticks and then come back home where she'd let him fondle her breast – over the shirt of course, after all she _was_ Quinn Fabray, president of the celibacy club. But no amount of over the shirt breast fondling, or even under the shirt breast fondling for that matter, was going to be able to fix this. The look in Finn's eyes – she had never seen anyone so angry, but more importantly, she had never seen anyone looking more _hurt_. If she could take it all back, she would, in a heartbeat, but she had given into temptation in the form of Noah Puckerman and she would spend the rest of her life suffering the repercussions.

After everything was said and done and Finn had found out, she had moved to the benches in the hall before being bombarded first by Manhands and then by Puck, but she just really needed to be alone, to be with her thoughts, and figure out what the hell she was going to do now. She knew that she was going to have to move out of Finn's house, but where was she going to go? She didn't have a clue, but all she wanted was just to leave school, leave this place, and be alone. So she ran out to her car.

Why, whenever she needed to cry, was it always raining? Every single time. By the time she reaches her car, she's drenched, and shivering. As she watches the rain pound down around her from inside the safety of her car, she's reminded of what she used to say every time she would pair up for the immaculate affection – if the balloon pop, the noise makes the angels cry. Quinn believes the angels are really crying today, and that's why it's raining. They're disappointed in her. She's going to straight to hell, and she deserves it. She's been going to hell since her last day of Bible camp, and she knows it.

As she presses her forehead to the steering wheel, she thinks about that , she was kind of apprehensive about Bible camp. Sure, it was only a day camp, but really? It sounds bad. She decided she wasn't going to tell anyone about it, except for Finn because he had to understand why she could never hang out with him during the day that summer. The last night of camp, her parents aren't home, so she invites him over. They plan to watch a movie, but they don't get past the opening credits before her lips are on his and she's pushing him down onto the sofa. She likes kissing Finn. _Loves it_, even. His lips are so soft and they're gentle against hers. Her small frame fits perfectly against his and she loves the way his hand moves along her side and down her thigh. As it makes its way back up, his fingers brush against her inner thigh and she has to bite back her moan as she feels herself get a little _damp_. He does it a few more times, but when his hand comes to rest on her butt, giving it a shy squeeze, she panics and pulls away, telling him that they should pray.

She can hear the frustration in his sigh and she almost gives in – almost, because she frustrated too. Then she realizes the devil is tempting her and finishes her prayer. She leans back in after she prays and at first, their kisses are more chaste. They still send shivers down her spine, but they're nothing compared to the kisses that come a few minute later. Her tongue is tangling with his and his hand is pressing into the small of her back, pushing her down onto his hips, pushing her against something hard. She knows what the _something_ is, because she's not stupid, and she can't help letting out a small moan knowing she can do that to him. Then she panics again and pulls away. He looks confused and she's breathing heavily, staring at him.

She wonders what Jesus would want her to do right then and there. She wants to touch it and feel it but she doesn't think Jesus would approve. But she's still curious. So she decides that maybe if she just feels him through his jeans, that would be okay. Technically she's not touching anything, just his jeans, so she thinks she's in the clear. She explains her dilemma to Finn and asks if he'll let her feel him up...not in those words, but that's what she wants to do. She inches herself closer to him and tentatively brushes her hand up against the bulge in his pants. It's a big bulge. That's the only way she can describe it. It's just _big_. His lips part and his head tilts back, and he says her name in a way that she's never quite heard before, but she likes. Since he seemed to like it too, she decides to do it again and his reaction is far from the same. He freaks out and shouts "mailman!" and it scares her. When she asks him what mailman means and he reluctantly tells her, she decides it's God way of trying to punish her for being so impure. They spend the rest of the night watching their movie in silence, on opposite sides of the sofa and when he leaves, her panties are still slightly wet. She throws them out and she never lets herself get that close to Finn again.

Two weeks later, she feels fat, and Finn has to help his mom with house chores so he can't come by to tell her that she's not. And honestly, her parents aren't home and she's scared of being alone with Finn again. She's afraid she won't be able to stop herself this time. She's afraid of wanting Finn too much and of doing something impure. But she needs someone to tell her she's not fat, so she calls up Puck and asks him if he'll come over. He tells her she's hot all the time, even if she knows it makes her uncomfortable, but she needs to hear it tonight. She doesn't expect the wine coolers, and underage drinking is wrong, she knows that, but the label says 0.5%. She doesn't think she can get drunk off of that.

She's wrong.

After her fourth one, she feels a little...she's not sure. She doesn't feel like herself. Puck kisses her and even if she knows it's wrong, she doesn't resist him. His hand travels up her leg and all those _feelings_ that Finn was making her feel start happening again. She feels her temperature rising and her eyelids flutter shut. When Puck's hand pushes past her thigh, to her center, she makes that same noise that she heard Finn make. She understands why Finn had trouble with the mail now. She knows it's wrong. It feels wrong. She wants it to be Finn. She knows it should be Finn. For a while, she pretends it's his hand and it feels so good. She almost moans his name by mistake. She gets the F- out and then she realizes it's Puck who's there so she adds an -uck and hopes he doesn't notice her blunder, not thinking what the two sounds together make. She's drunk. She doesn't have that kind of reasoning anymore. Her panties are off and Puck's hand is touching her and it just feels so good. She knows it's wrong, she knows it's _so_ wrong, that Jesus will be mad at her. But she's mad at Jesus for making her feel fat. So they'll be fair and square and it doesn't really matter, does it? That's when she gives herself over to Puck. She only realizes it's wrong when out of habit, she does the same thing she does every night right before she lets sleep win the battle with her eyelids – she looks over at the picture of Finn on her night stand and says, "I love you."

Quinn was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of Puck knocking on her window, asking to be let in. As she opened the passenger's side door for him, she knew it was over. She had lost Finn that night. She had given into temptation and she would have to suffer for it now, whether she liked it or not.


	3. Monsters and closets

**Author's note: **So, it's been a while, huh? I kind of lost muse for this story, but I'm getting it back now. Any mistakes are mine cause this hasn't been beta'ed. Please R&R.

* * *

Finn knows he's going to have a lot of explaining to do when he gets into his daughter's room. Beth isn't someone that they like to talk about, and for the safety of their kids, they made a decision not to tell them until the twins were ten. He knew that they could have told Caroline, but asking her to keep a secret like that from her siblings didn't seem right either. None of this was right. He was worried about Quinn, but he was also worried about Caroline. He didn't want her to feel like they were keeping secrets from her, and he knew that she wasn't going to be happy. She was probably confused, and being a confused teenager was never a good thing. She'd already been through so much, Finn didn't want to throw her life off kilter, but she had to know now.

"Daddy?"

Finn turned around to look down at his son, clutching his dinosaur in his hand and rubbing his eyes, still full of sleep. "Frederick, you should be in bed, you know that."

"I know, but I heard noises and I thought it was a monster. I didn't want it to hurt Caroline!" Freddy protested, lazily holding his arm up for Finn to pick him up. Finn bent down and scooped him up into his arms. "Can we go see Caroline to make sure she's okay?"

"You're such a good brother, trying to protect your big sister from the monsters," Finn smiled, smoothing down his son's hair. "Where's Andrew? Is he still sleeping?"

"Yeah, you know a hurricane couldn't wake him up once his head hits the pillow," Freddy chuckled, quoting his mother's words. Quinn said that all the time, but it was true. Drew Hudson was out like a lightbulb once he was tucked in his race car bed.

"Come on, let's go see your sister," Finn sighed, pulling the hem of Freddy's shirt down as he walked to Caroline's room, knocking on the door. "Care? It's dad. Can I come in? Freddy heard noises and he thought it was a monster, he wants to make sure you're okay."

Finn smiled as he heard a chuckle from his daughter's room. "Yeah, come in." Pushing open the door, Finn winced as Freddy yelled "Caroliiiiine," loud enough that his ear was ringing.

"Shhh you're going to wake up Mell and Drew," Finn sighed, putting Freddy down because he was reaching to Caroline, desperately trying to get to her. Caroline scooped him up and sat him down on her lap.

"I'm fine, buddy. I'm too bada- cool for the monsters," she smiled, holding her hand up for him to give her a high five.

"What if it was the boogeyman?" Freddy asked, his eyes wide.

"If it was the boogeyman, I'd just get a really big Kleenex. He'd run away scared," Caroline laughed, adjusting her brother on her lap.

"That's a good idea! You're really smart, Care," Freddy clapped, clearly awake now and not going anywhere.

Finn moved to close the door, sitting down next to his daughter on her bed. "That boy you were supposed to have over prob-"

"I canceled, dad. I'm not an idiot, I can see when it's not a good time to have someone over," she pointed out, shaking her head.

"Thanks," Finn smiled, pressing his lips to the top of her head.

"So who's the girl and why did mom freak the fu- fudge out?" Caroline asked, arching an eyebrow at her father. She had to be careful to censor herself when her little siblings were around. _So_ annoying.

Finn took a deep breath as he chewed on his lip. He and Quinn had never talked about all of this. There was no contingency plan for 'what if' because they assumed that Beth would never want to know them. "That's your sister... your half-sister," Finn sighed, raking a hand through his hair.

"W-what?" Caroline asked, her eyes wide. "You're kidding me. Mom's such a prude, there's no _way _that she'd get her mack on, nevermind do anything else, with someone who wasn't you."

"You've never met Noah Puckerman, aka Pucky Puck," Finn replied, shrugging his shoulders.

"Mom and – wow. That's just, _wow_," Caroline stumbled, looking away as she took a moment to process everything. Well, her mom officially had no leg to stand on anymore.

"Can I ask a question?" Freddy wondered, looking up at his dad. He had the feeling that he was sitting and listening to a _grown up_ conversation, because people kept leaving words out and he was getting a little lost.

"Of course, Frederick," Finn replied, without a second thought.

"If she's my sister, how come she doesn't live with us?"

Finn groaned. Why was his son so smart? Why couldn't more of the kids have taken after him? Damn those Fabray genes for being so prominent. "It's complicated," Finn admitted, before moving off the bed to the closet. Opening the door, Finn reached around for a small box of photos that hadn't been touched for quite some time. Brushing the dust off of it, he carried it back to the bed and opened it, rummaging through it for pictures from that time. "That's your mom, and that's me, when we went to McKinley High. This is in grade 10, right after summer vacation, at the first football game of the season."

"Wow, you guys looked like that golden couple. Quarterback, head cheerleader. You guys were such a cliche," Caroline sighed, taking the picture. "Doesn't dad have the most terrible helmet hair there?" she chuckled, pointing it out for Freddy.

"I think mommy looks really cute," Freddy replied.

"Your mommy's always been really cute. It's a Fabray thing," Finn sighed, shaking his head as he chuckled a little bit. "Anyways, this was shortly after the news where your mom told me she was pregnant with my baby..."

"But I thought you said she was-"

"She is."

"So you two-"

"No."

"Then how-"

"It's not important how I believed that she was mine, but I did. Your mom was very good at making things work for her, and I was kind of naive and dumb back then, so I believed whatever she said to me. I also believed that she'd never cheat on me, especially not with Puck," Finn replied, not entirely eager to sit there explaining that he was an early ejaculator in his youth to his daughter. It would all go over Freddy's head, so that was fine, but it was awkward to talk about that stuff with your seventeen year old adopted daughter.

Rummaging through the box for another picture, Finn pulled out a picture of everyone at Mattress Land, the time that they filmed that commercial for Glee club. "This is your mom a few months later, when she was already showing. That was the last kind of good memory that I have of your mom for a while after that."

"Why?" Freddy asked, his eyes wide as he pushed his bottom lip out into a pout.

"Because mommy lied to me for a long time, and she said that Beth was mine, when she wasn't. She was actually Puck's baby girl, and a friend of mine, a girl called Rachel Berry – we went to see her in New York, remember? Anyways, she figured out that the baby wasn't mine and told me just a few days later. Needless to say I wasn't too happy with your mom. I'd gotten a job, and I'd kind of fallen in love with Beth at that point," Finn frowned. It had been years, but it still didn't hurt any less to think of how he had felt when Rachel had told him how she had devised that test to trick Quinn and how Quinn had fallen right into that trap.

"Wow, this is kind of crushing my image of mom," Caroline frowned, furrowing her eyebrows.

"It shouldn't. Everything worked out okay, I promise," Finn smiled. "But you can't understand the end of the story without hearing the not so great beginning..."

* * *

Finn Hudson was floating. Literally just drifting through life, unaware of what he was doing half the time. He felt so _angry_, so _stupid_, but mostly he just felt really, really _hurt_. Quinn had lied to him about being the father of a baby. A _baby_. It wasn't like she'd said that she could only get him the medium sized slushie at the 7-11 because they were all out of super sized cups when it wasn't true. A baby was a real, soon-to-be-breathing being. Something he thought that he had accidentally helped to create. He couldn't believe that he'd been dumb enough to believe that sperm wouldn't fry in the heat of the hot tub instead of swimming faster. He was so humiliated.

To make matters worse, now that he was obviously single, Rachel seemed to have gotten the deluded idea in her head that they were dating now. Sure, kissing her was kind of cool and stuff, but... his heart wasn't really in it. Sure, Rachel was super hot in a really weird kind of way, but he just wasn't ready to be dating. He had spent so long being a dad, the best dad he could be, to a baby that wasn't his that he really just needed a break. He needed to figure out who he was and he couldn't do that with Rachel breathing down his neck.

Luckily, at least between second and third periods, he had managed to evade her. He had taken a longer, out of the way route to his locker, just so that he wouldn't have to worry about being around her. Unfortunately for him though, the extra time meant that he couldn't make his quick dash as usual, so he felt the presence of Quinn Fabray in the hall. She was watching him, he could feel it. He looked up for a brief second, and she seemed so sad as she looked at him.

Finn's heart broke in that instant. His instinct was to go over to her and wrap his arms around her, tell her everything was going to be okay. But then Noah Puckerman appeared and he remembered that she had lied to him for months about being the father to her baby so suddenly he didn't feel so bad anymore. Instead he just felt pissed off. How _dare_ she look upset when she had brought this on herself. If she had just been honest with him, maybe he would have forgiven her. Maybe he could have forgiven her, but she had hurt him, so badly, and she had shamed him. He felt like he had a big, permanent sticker on his forehead that read _idiot_.

It bothered him the whole day that she had the nerve to look at him that way, so much so that he had to talk about it with someone – so naturally he went to his mom. "I can't believe her," he growled, "after all she did, she looks at me like she's hurting. What about _me_? She lied to me for months! She let me think that the baby was mine!"

"Finn, honey, calm down," Carole implored, putting her hand on his arm. "Sit down, I'll make you some warm milk." Mrs. Hudson knew her son all too well and she knew what was going through his mind.

"Whatever," Finn replied, shrugging his shoulders, even though warm milk really did sound kind of awesome. Watching as his mom busied herself getting it ready, he raked a hand through his hair, before flopping his face down onto the table. "Ow."

"Here. Take this and drink it, and just try and calm down," Carole sighed, sitting down next to him.

"I just... Everything about this sucks so much," Finn mumbled, looking down at the mug in his hands.

"I know. But honey, I don't think she was trying to hurt you," his mother replied, putting her hand on his arm affectionately.

"Oh, so you're on her side now? Great," he groaned, taking a sip of his milk.

"I'm not on her side. I'm not on anyone's side. I'm just saying think about it from her perspective. She was probably scared, Finn. I mean, you know the kind of family that she comes from, and here she was, sixteen and pregnant. She knew she was going to lose her parents, and she was probably scared and ashamed, and afraid of losing you. Does that make what she did okay? Of course not, but she didn't do what she did to hurt you. Just try and remember that, okay?" Carole patted his arm again and got up from the table, probably to go do some laundry or other mom things.

What if his mom was right? Was if Quinn _wasn't_ trying to hurt him and she had just been scared? He'd done lots of dumb things when he was scared, like the time he accidentally broke his mom's favorite vase and swept all the pieces under the rug cause he thought she wouldn't find them there. Okay, so that wasn't _as_ bad as lying about a baby or anything, but he understood.

For the first time, Finn understood.


End file.
